Posted
by
Roblimo
on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @04:04PM
from the wang-em-bang-em-robots dept.

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, AKA FIRST, holds annual robot challenges, in which student teams build robots, then operate them to the cheers of an adoring crowd. Slashdot watched the Dexter Dreadbots build their 2014 contender. (The Dreadbots are Slashdot's home team.) And we've watched other FIRST competitions before, but this is the 2014 Michigan state championships. The next step after the state finals is an appearance at the National Championship Competition, which starts today, April 23, in St. Louis, although the first day is speeches and such, not actual competition. Keep an eye on usfirst.org to see who wins. And before that, you can watch the matches themselves, streamed live courtesy of NASA. (Alternate video link.)

After listening to mind-numbing advertisements for 5 minutes, I just closed the tab. I simply came back to warn you guys, don't even bother playing the video unless you have 30 minutes to spare watching commercials

Each year the competition is different but, this year the primary goal is to move two foot diameter balls into either a low goal for one point or a seven foot high goal for 10 points. All with a robot that isn't allowed to be more than five feet tall. There are ways to work with the teams on your alliance to score more points per ball as well as a 62 inch tall truss at mid field to shoot over for an additional 10 points. Even though I work with a high school team every year (FIRE Team #0322), some years